Despite being dealt double-digit defeats in the three federal byelections that handed Prime Minister Mark Carney his majority, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre says he has no plans to resign. “Canadians might be discouraged right now because of the current political situation, but let us say this, Canadians should not give up,” he said in the House of Commons on Tuesday...
Ontario Premier Doug Ford says a Liberal win in two federal byelections means that Prime Minister Mark Carney will have a stronger hand to negotiate with U.S. President Donald Trump amid an ongoing trade war. “I think anyone that has a majority government has a stronger hand to deal with President Trump and the tariffs that we’re facing,” Ford told...
PM says immediate focus will be on passing affordability, home construction measures. Prime Minister Mark Carney says he will use his newly won majority to push through legislation that the opposition parties have stymied in recent years, saying his immediate focus will be quickly passing affordability measures and a bill designed to turbocharge home construction. The Liberal candidates in two...
The federal government is set to temporarily suspend the federal fuel excise tax on gas and diesel starting next week. Prime Minister Mark Carney made the announcement in Ottawa on Tuesday, just hours after his government secured a majority through three byelection wins. The suspension will come into effect on April 20 and last until Sept. 7, and it comes...
Prime Minister Mark Carney has turned his minority government into a majority with two seats to spare after sweeping two Ontario byelections and narrowly winning a Quebec contest, but the Liberals are likely pushing for a “four- or five-seat cushion” while their popularity lasts and Conservatives pull fewer votes, says a Liberal strategist. “A one or two seat majority today...
The Liberals hold a 13-point lead, and Mr Carney is the preferred prime minister. The economic picture is darkening fast: concern over jobs and the economy has risen nearly five points in a month, inflation worry is up and anxieties about Trump and America has dropped to the third most important national issue.
The latest Weekly Federal Tracker rom Liaison Strategies shows the Liberal Party maintaining a steady 10-percentage-point lead over the Conservatives, bolstered by high approval ratings for Prime Minister Mark Carney and significant leads in key regions like Ontario and the Prairies. If a federal election were held today the Liberals would receive 43% of the vote, followed by the Conservatives...
EDMONTON -- The Alberta government says it won't axe its fuel tax yet, after Prime Minister Mark Carney announced federal measures to give Canadians relief at the pumps.
Poilievre says Carney needs to 'get things done … without blaming others.' The morning after the Liberals secured a thin majority government, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said Prime Minister Mark Carney has no more excuses if he doesn't deliver for Canadians. "The Liberals wanted a majority — well, absolute power comes with absolute responsibility," the leader of the Official Opposition...
There has been a lot of debate in recent weeks about the province’s decision to take over the City of Toronto’s role in the agreement governing Billy Bishop Airport and to acquire the city-owned lands at the airport. Some have asked why the province would take such a step. The answer is that Billy Bishop is a critical piece of...
Seeking to explain just where the Liberals draw the line on accepting members of other parties into their midst, House Leader Steven MacKinnon said the party would “keep a light on and a door open for all of those who want to support Liberal Party principles,” which he described as “immutable.” And of course, he’s right. Liberal policies may come...
How much more Liberal raiding and spending and winning can Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre survive? Maybe very little. Three byelection losses Monday night are a further humiliation. Prime Minister Mark Carney took quick advantage.
Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet stepped out to meet reporters and take his by-election defeat on the chin. “We have to take it with humility. And we have to take it with patience,” Mr. Blanchet said. There’s a wave, he said – arguing that past Conservative and New Democrat voters moved to the Liberals – that seems even stronger now...
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney won three byelections Monday night, giving him a majority government and a free hand to further remake the government he inherited from Justin Trudeau.
Officially, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is outraged. “The Carney Liberals did not win a majority government through a general election or today’s by-elections,” Mr. Poilievre posted on X Monday night, as the results erasing his leverage in the House of Commons rolled in. The Liberals swept all three by-elections, less than a week after they seduced the unlikeliest of floor-crossers...
Tories worry that Carney has reshaped politics in Quebec
LIBERAL PARTY MEMBERS milled, decked in red lanyards, taking photos. “Welcome to Libcon2026” read a banner high on the wall at the top of the escalators in Montreal’s Palais des congrès. On a merch table nearby lay piles of red shirts and crewnecks, emblazoned with the Liberal logo. Two rows of black hats were amongst the items. The words “Canada...
Mark Carney didn’t just get a majority on Monday night — he also won the precious political commodity of time.
Byelections give the Liberals one of the most remarkable majorities in Parliament's history. There have been a total of 24 prime ministers in Canada's history, but before Monday night only 13 could claim to have led their party to a majority of seats in the House of Commons. Mark Carney is now the 14th to do it.
The second phase of Mark Carney’s government now begins. It has a majority in the House of Commons, and that allows it to look further ahead. In the year since winning a general election on the hustings, Mr. Carney’s Liberals have campaigned by other means. They have juggled expectations higher and higher – adding onto Mr. Carney’s narrative about an...
As Mark Carney celebrates a belated majority victory nearly a year after his election as prime minister, he can once again thank Donald J. Trump, along with the voters of University-Rosedale, Scarborough Southwest, and Terrebonne. Of all the improbable outcomes Trump’s presidency has rationalized, Canada’s pro-technocrat groundswell of floor-crossers and byelection voters is among the most interesting, and least dystopian...
Prime Minister Mark Carney has secured the first Liberal government since 2019. That’s right — in case you hadn’t noticed, Canada has been operating under minority governments for seven years. Two were won by Justin Trudeau in 2019 and 2021, one by Carney in 2025. Trudeau’s minorities necessitated significant compromise with the NDP; from 2021 until the fall of 2024...
On Sunday, after 16 straight years of hoarding power and money, the authoritarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán lost one of the last things in Hungary he’d allowed to remain free: the election. He lost with everything behind him but the Hungarian people. He had the judiciary, every level of which he’d stacked with loyalists and, in some cases, created out...
The global expansion of the illiberal right has been so seemingly inexorable that the victory of a democratic centre-right leader in Hungary, after 16 years of “electoral autocracy,” still seems implausible.
The federal Liberals are now the strongest party in the country, as was amply on display at their convention in Montreal over the weekend. It’s not their politics that have put them there, as was also clear in Montreal. It’s the absence of politics — the ability to shape-shift into a force that can’t be pinned down as right or...
Pierre Poilievre has flunked the most basic test for any leader, advancing his party's prospects to portray it as a government-in-waiting. But it will be waiting a long time under the status quo. Admittedly, part of the reason that the CPC has set up permanent residence in the political wilderness has to do with the current prime minister.
Amid the floor-crossing, Liberals may have needed to hear a salute to their party. At a moment of celebration and on the eve of potentially even greater triumph, Prime Minister Mark Carney offered a brief note of caution. "Just over a year ago, in the midst of a blizzard ... we started down the road to make the best country...
The buzz at the Liberal convention over the weekend was all about floor-crossers. On Friday morning, there was a rumour circulating that Prime Minister Mark Carney would show up unexpectedly to unveil another, freshly recruited Conservative to follow the surprise defection of Marilyn Gladu. Later, there was scuttlebutt that Mr. Carney might show up on Saturday with two or three.
As Quebecers prepare for an election in early October, the dramatis personae of what will be a very political summer — from the beaches of Gaspésie to the Festival Western de Ste-Tite — was filled-in with another major party leader on Sunday. Christine Fréchette, 56, a former minister in the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) government of outgoing premier François Legault...
By the time this column appears in print, the Liberal party will have wrapped up its convention in Montreal.
This was supposed to be a column about the trio of by-elections in a few days that would have delivered the Liberals to the balmy climes of MajorityLand – if everything went exactly right for them, that is. But then, Marilyn Gladu decided to make Wednesday the most exciting day of the week. The Sarnia, Ont. MP was elected four...
Supporters of the Liberal Party of Canada had much to celebrate in Montreal this weekend. For one thing, the party is on the verge of commanding another majority in the House of Commons. Sixteen months ago that seemed implausible, bordering on inconceivable. For another, it continues to exist as a significant presence in Canadian politics. Fifteen years ago that seemed...
The federal government is set to table its spring economic update on April 28, the one-year anniversary of the Liberals’ general election win, Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne told the House of Commons Tuesday. It will be Prime Minister Mark Carney’s first since his cabinet flipped the release schedule for its budgets and fiscal updates. The document will give the latest...
An earthquake rattled Ottawa, eastern Ontario and western Quebec during the lunch hour Tuesday afternoon.
The morning after the Liberals secured a majority government, Prime Minister Mark Carney said Canadians can expect Parliament to be more substantive and less performative. "There's a difference between real testimony, real substance, getting to issues, debating aspects of law, advancing -- that's the job of parliamentarians -- and showboating," he said. The governing party held seats in three byelections...
Today is the first day Prime Minister Mark Carney will be heading to Parliament Hill with his newly minted majority government. Winning all three seats that were up for grabs in Monday’s byelections, the federal Liberals are entering a new era. What will this mean for federal political dynamics, the timing of the next federal election, and passing policy? Here’s...
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre does not expect his MPs to confront him with demands to step down at Wednesday’s caucus meeting, or any formal move to invoke caucus powers to trigger a secret ballot vote that could end his leadership, the Star has learned. A senior Conservative strategist and party insider, granted anonymity to speak freely, said last week’s surprise...
A former Conservative cabinet minister who is no stranger to floor-crossings says Pierre Poilievre ought to “double his efforts” in the wake of a fourth member crossing the floor to join the Liberals — a move that now leaves him more exposed. Peter MacKay, a co-founder of the Conservative party after having led the former Progressive Conservatives before it merged...
Tatiana Auguste is returning to the House of Commons after winning a hotly contested byelection for the Liberals in the Quebec riding of Terrebonne. The suburban riding near Montreal saw a rematch between Auguste and Bloc Quebecois candidate Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagne a year after it produced the closest result in the country in the last federal election. After a judicial recount...
Danielle Martin will soon head to the House of Commons after winning a byelection for the Liberals in the Toronto riding of University--Rosedale on Monday. A family physician, Martin has served as executive vice-president of Women's College Hospital. She has also led the department of family and community medicine at the University of Toronto. In 2014, Martin appeared before a...
Former New Democrat Doly Begum completed her political transformation Monday night by securing another seat for her new party in the House of Commons in a byelection in the Toronto-area riding of Scarborough Southwest. Her opponents included Conservative candidate Diana Filipova and NDP candidate Fatima Shaban. Begum represented Scarborough for more than seven years as a member of the Ontario...
Liberal candidate Tatiana Auguste won the Terrebonne riding north of Montreal for the second time in a year Monday after her one-vote victory in 2025 was overturned by the courts. With all ballots counted, she led with 48.4 per cent of the vote compared to 46.8 for Bloc Quebecois candidate Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagne, securing a clean sweep in the evening's three...
It took nearly a full year and a handful of byelections and defections for Prime Minister Mark Carney to assemble enough members of Parliament to turn his minority government into a majority -- a feat that has never happened in Canadian politics before. The Liberals won in three byelections Monday, giving them 174 seats in the House of Commons. That...
The former leader of the Canadian Nationalist Party is facing a hate speech charge in Saskatchewan. RCMP say they received a report last year of hateful material being posted online in a public forum. Mounties say someone was wilfully promoting hatred against an identifiable group but did not elaborate.
It was a once-dominant force in British Columbia politics, but for more than a year and a half the party formerly known as the BC Liberals has been dormant -- at least in the public eye. Now, a scandal over dirty tricks in the run-up to the 2024 provincial election has put the party that changed its name to BC...
Prince Edward Island's finance minister has tabled a record deficit budget for the second year in a row. Jill Burridge introduced the 2026-27 budget in Charlottetown today with a $410-million deficit. It's more than double the $184-million deficit the Progressive Conservative government tabled last spring, which was a record at the time. This year, Premier Rob Lantz's government plans to...
Measures will impact the federal fuel excise tax according to senior government source. A day after sweeping three byelections in Ontario and Quebec that gave him a majority in the House of Commons, Prime Minister Mark Carney will try to give voters a reason to be reassured with the rising cost of living Tuesday by announcing new affordability measures. According...
One year after rescuing Canada’s Liberal Party from electoral disaster, Mark Carney has strengthened his hold on power. The rookie prime minister clinched a razor-thin majority in special elections on Monday night, bolstered by five defections during the past five months from progressive and conservative parties to the Liberals. Results are still being counted, but Liberal candidate Danielle Martin claimed...
Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Liberals secured a majority government after clinching all three federal byelections held on Monday night. Nearly a year after last April’s minority government win and on the heels of courting five opposition MPs to cross the floor, Carney’s grip on power just got tighter. In the Liberals’ first win of the night in University-Rosedale, Ont., candidate...
VICTORIA -- The prospect of an early election in British Columbia is receding after the government announced that legislation to suspend parts of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act will no longer be a confidence vote.
MONTREAL -- Quebec premier-designate Christine Frechette has a bit more than five months to make her party more appealing to Quebecers before the provincial elections.
Conservative member of Parliament Billy Morin says the Liberals are trying to get him to cross the floor, but he has no intention of leaving the Conservative caucus. Speaking on a hot mic before a press conference on Parliament Hill, Morin asked journalists unprompted: “Do you want to run a story on floor crossing?” When questioned if he would be...
Prime Minister Mark Carney is welcoming Hungary's shift toward supporting Ukraine and liberal democracy as voters ended 16 years of far-right government. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban conceded defeat on Sunday, after running a government in Budapest that increasingly attacked media freedom, courts and universities. Orban was widely seen as the main impediment to European Union support for Ukraine against...
OTTAWA -- The NDP is expected to introduce a motion on Wednesday calling on the government to ban a practice known as surveillance pricing that New Democrats say is unfair to consumers.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney's Liberals could soon form a slim majority in the House of Commons if the party is able to make gains in three by-elections being held on Monday. The outcome of the races, two in the Toronto-area and one near Montreal, could solidify his hold on power, staving off a federal election until as late as...
Poilievre said that it's up to British conservatives to figure out their own issues.
Former senior Liberal cabinet ministers say they have "deep concern" about the federal government's decision not to pass legislation aiming to close what they consider a regulatory gap in arms exports. Former Liberal foreign affairs minister Lloyd Axworthy and former justice minister and ambassador to the United Nations Allan Rock recently wrote a letter to Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand...
As she faced reporters for the first time after announcing herself as a Liberal, Marilyn Gladu seemed to hint that, as an MP on the government side of the House, her riding of Sarnia-Lambton-Bkejwanong would get access to government funding that it was not getting so long as she was a Conservative MP.
Voters in two Ontario ridings and one in Quebec will head to the polls on Monday for a slate of crucial federal byelections that could hand the Liberals a majority government — cementing their hold on power for the next few years. The Liberals need to win just one of those races to secure a razor-thin majority government. Because the...
Prime Minister Mark Carney government’s much-touted high-speed rail project, with an estimated cost of $60–$90 billion, carries significant political risk, according to political insiders, who say that instead of prioritizing this large-scale mega project, billed as one of Carney’s “nation-building” projects, the government should focus on intra-city transit initiatives that are more immediately relevant to Canadians. “When you sit down...
Quebec will soon have a new premier after former cabinet minister Christine Frechette was named leader of the governing Coalition Avenir Quebec on Sunday. She is to be sworn in before the Quebec legislature resumes early next month, but a date has not yet been set. Frechette defeated Bernard Drainville in the race to replace Francois Legault, who announced in...
The Liberals may be widely expected to walk away form Monday's three byelections with a clear majority, but the pressure is still on for them to fight for the hotly contested Terrebonne riding. Sunday marked the final day of campaigning before the parties rev up their get-out-the-vote efforts, and party organizers say it's all hands on deck. The Liberals have...
MEXICO CITY (AP) -- The Mexican government on Tuesday protested the number of its citizens who have died in U.S. custody as President Claudia Sheinbaum pushes back against U.S. President Donald Trump 's policies on multiple fronts.
A major U.S. Postal Service union is launching a national TV ad campaign promoting voting by mail, stepping into a politically charged debate as skepticism about mail-in ballots has been raised by President Donald Trump and others.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- A majority of U.S. Catholic voters supported Donald Trump in his 2024 presidential victory. Yet across the broad Catholic political spectrum - even among conservative-leaning bishops - there is dismay over Trump's unprecedented verbal assault on the Pope Leo XIV, the first American to lead their church.
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) -- Paul Dans, a chief architect of Project 2025, has shuttered his Republican primary challenge to Sen. Lindsey Graham in South Carolina, in a contest set to test the loyalties of President Donald Trump and his MAGA movement in this year's midterm election.
Prime Minister Mark Carney is welcoming Hungary's shift toward supporting Ukraine and liberal democracy as voters ended 16 years of far-right government. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban conceded defeat on Sunday, after running a government in Budapest that increasingly attacked media freedom, courts and universities. Orban was widely seen as the main impediment to European Union support for Ukraine against...
Former senior Liberal cabinet ministers say they have "deep concern" about the federal government's decision not to pass legislation aiming to close what they consider a regulatory gap in arms exports. Former Liberal foreign affairs minister Lloyd Axworthy and former justice minister and ambassador to the United Nations Allan Rock recently wrote a letter to Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand...
Record voter turnout delivered election result with global repercussions. Hungarian voters on Sunday ousted long-serving Prime Minister Viktor Orbán after 16 years in power, rejecting the authoritarian policies and global far-right movement that he embodied in favour of a pro-European challenger in a bombshell election result with global repercussions. Election victor Péter Magyar, a former Orbán loyalist who campaigned against...
In marathon meetings this weekend, sources say the two sides were deadlocked over Tehran's nuclear program and control of the strait.
Canada is condemning Israel for striking Lebanon hours after an apparent ceasefire was struck in the Middle East conflict and is calling on Hezbollah to disarm in favour of diplomatic solutions. Despite an 11th-hour ceasefire announced by U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday, Israel attacked Beirut on Wednesday in a renewed effort to strike at the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group...
Canada needs to make workforce upskilling a central pillar to the Pan-Canadian Artificial Intelligence (AI) Strategy. The global economy is entering an AI accelerating phase. Countries that have relatively large knowledge economy sectors, like Canada, face higher exposure to AI-driven change. Budget 2025 focused on AI infrastructure investments. Budget 2026 must expand the focus to AI workforce upskilling. AI is...
Free trade negotiations with the United States have always triggered acrimonious and deeply damaging debates in Canada and often exposed political miscalculations at the highest levels. During the 1911 federal election campaign, Prime Minister Sir Wilfrid Laurier, running on a free trade platform, was denounced in Quebec as a traitor to the French and in Ontario as a traitor to...
A collection of SubStack publishing within Canadian public affairs.
Prime Minister Mark Carney’s office wants to bust up a monopoly. I think I’m the target. Let me explain. The Privy Council Office (PCO), home of the prime minister and cabinet, has been flooded with complaints about its failures to comply with the Access to Information Act.
Canadian troops may be only days away from deploying to the Middle East to aid the U.S.’s and Israel’s war on Iran. The latest indication is a joint statement expressing concern about Iran’s restriction of oil tankers through the narrow Strait of Hormuz signed by Prime Minister Mark Carney and NATO allies late in the week.
Canadians who have neglected to pay their taxes to the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) have been coming forward in droves to take advantage of new amnesty rules.
For a year the Liberals have been trying to cobble together a majority out of their election night minority. Now they seem to have attained one. What's the big deal? James Moore and Gerald Butts have their say on that, plus, AI and how we are simply just not ready for what is already here.
The Liberals swept all three byelections yesterday, winning as expected in University—Rosedale and Scarborough Southwest and prevailing in a close fight with the Bloc Québécois in Terrebonne. The three wins give Mark Carney a majority government, something the Liberals have not had since 2019. Meanwhile, the Conservative vote tanked across the board and the NDP had a small moral victory...
With last night’s byelection wins, Prime Minister Mark Carney is now leading a majority government. But after five floor crossers joined the Liberals, spanning from the NDP to the social conservative wing of the Conservative party, there are questions around what exactly that government stands for.
It's a great question and it comes from one of our listeners for our regular Monday conversation with Dr Janice Stein from the Munk School at the University of Toronto. That and a lot more, including how the Pope has entered the discussion about Trump.
